"The last keepit a firm hand owre such gallants as you, before King Charles cam' hame," replied Mersington, who, like all meagre men, was a great gourmand, and was doing ample justice to all the good things before him. Clermistonlee, too, notwithstanding the lateness of the hour, did his part fairly--but all times were alike to him, his irregular habits and debauched life had by long custom made them so, and he assailed the capon, the cutlets, the oysters, and sack tankard, in rapid succession, while Juden stood behind his chair, napkin in hand, with eyes half-closed, and nodding head. "Mersington, some more of the cutlets? My Lord, you must permit me--do justice to my poor house, a bachelor's though it be. Juden, hand that dish of Crail capons from the buffet." The butler hastily placed before his master an ample dish containing a pile of small haddocks prepared in a mode now disused and forgotten. "Crail capons--allow me to help you; and don't spare the burnt sack, my Lord." "Thank ye:--weel, then, Clermistonlee, anent this business of the Napiers," said Mersington, referring to a former conversation; "what mean ye to do now, eh?" "Use every means to obtain their lands--and Lilian to boot," replied his friend, after a brief pause, and while a slight colour crossed his cheek. "I have taken a particular fancy for that old house of Bruntisfield--ha, ha! with the parks adjoining. Faith, the lands run from the Harestarie to my own gate at Drumsbeugh, and from the Links, where young Bruntisfield was slain long ago, to the house of the Chieslies, beside the devil only knows how many tofts and tenements within the walls of the city." "A noble barony for a dowry!" "It will form a seasonable subsidy to my exchequer, which is drained to its last plack at present. You know I have long loved this girl." "Or _said_ so; but the lands, he, he! are forfeited to the King, man!" "So were those of the Mures of Caldwell, yet Sir Thomas of Binns now holds them as a free gift from the Council--and holds fast, too." "Auld Dame Bruntisfield is but a life-rentrix; thou knowest, man, that Captain Napier, of Buchan's regiment of Scots'-Dutch, is the next and last heir of entail." "Tush! I will have _him_ under the nippers of the Lord Advocate ere long; when his head is on yonder battlements of the Nether Bow, the barony of Bruntisfield goes to Lilian Napier, and dost think, Mersington, that chitti-faced girl will stand in my way? I trow not. Maclutchy and some of our best-trained beagles are on the captain's track, and they will run him down somewhere in the west country, depend upon it. But 'tis neither hall nor holm, wood or water, that will satisfy me----"